Man wrongly told he had terminal cancer gets $60K

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — A judge in Montana has ordered the Fort Harrison VA Medical Center to pay nearly $60,000 to a Winston man who was wrongly diagnosed with brain cancer and told he had just a few months to live.

U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy wrote that the distress Mark Templin and his family suffered was caused by Dr. Patrick Morrow's "negligent failure to meet the standard of care" in delivering the diagnosis in 2009.

Molloy's decision noted that in the months Templin believed he was dying he quit his job, sold his pickup truck, celebrated a "last" birthday, bought a prearranged funeral service and contemplated suicide.

The Independent Record reports (http://bit.ly/12iPm71 ) that as Templin began to feel better, he underwent additional testing that determined he had instead suffered several small strokes.